The Las Piñas–Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area (LPPCHEA), also known as the Las Piñas–Parañaque Wetland Park, is a

protected area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewood ...

at the coasts of the cities of

Las Piñas Las Piñas (, officially the City of Las Piñas (), is a Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Metro Manila, National Capital Region of the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it had a population of ...

and

Parañaque Parañaque, officially the City of Parañaque (, ), is a Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Metro Manila, National Capital Region of the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of ...

Metro Manila Metropolitan Manila ( ), commonly shortened to Metro Manila and formally the National Capital Region (NCR; ), is the capital region and largest List of metropolitan areas in the Philippines, metropolitan area of the Philippines. Located ...

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. The entire wetland is a declared

Ramsar site A Ramsar site is a wetland site designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar Convention,8 ha (O) *** Permanent 8 ha (P) *** Seasonal Intermittent < 8 ha(Ts) **

Ramsar Convention The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Ramsar site, Ramsar sites (wetlands). It is also known as the Convention on We ...

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

History

In November 1973, the Construction Development Corporation of the Philippines (now

Philippine National Construction Corporation The Philippine National Construction Corporation (PNCC) is a government-owned and controlled corporation (GOCC) in the Philippines. It is the largest construction company in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia. It is usually tasked with majo ...

) secured a government contract for the Manila–Cavite Coastal Road and Reclamation Project. The project to extend

Roxas Boulevard Roxas Boulevard is a popular waterfront promenade in Metro Manila in the Philippines. The boulevard, which runs along the shores of Manila Bay, is well known for its sunsets and stretch of coconut trees. The divided roadway has become a tradem ...

south to

Cavite Cavite, officially the Province of Cavite (; Chavacano: ''Provincia de Cavite''), is a Provinces of the Philippines, province of the Philippines located in the Calabarzon region. On the southern shores of Manila Bay and southwest of Manila, i ...

province required reclamation of foreshore lands in Parañaque and Las Piñas. Construction of the coastal road started during the term of

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino lawyer, politician, dictator, and Kleptocracy, kleptocrat who served as the tenth president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled the c ...

and was completed and opened to traffic in September 1985. The island was formed during construction with plans to expand the island and continue reclamation of the coastal area from Bay City to Las Piñas following Philippine Reclamation Authority's masterplan for the Southern Reclamation Project. The islands were proclaimed as a Critical Habitat by the Philippine government through Presidential Proclamation No. 1412 on April 22, 2007. It covered covering the two interconnected islands where important bird habitats such as mangroves, beach forests, lagoons, and mudflats are found. It was listed as a

Ramsar wetland The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Ramsar sites (wetlands). It is also known as the Convention on Wetlands. It i ...

of international importance on March 15, 2013. Upon the enactment of the Republic Act No. 11038 (Expanded National Integrated Protected Area Act) on June 22, 2018, the LPPCHEA was legislated as a National Protected Area covering . On February 12, 2019, approximately 22

Manila Bay Manila Bay (; ) is a natural harbor that serves the Port of Manila (on Luzon), in the Philippines. Strategically located around the Manila, capital city of the Philippines, Manila Bay facilitated commerce and trade between the Philippines and ...

land reclamation projects were announced by the government, sparking criticism. Among those to be affected by the reclamation projects is the Las Piñas–Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area. The city government and concerned agencies inaugurated The Wetland Center Museum at the Las Piñas-Parañaque Wetland Park on February 2, 2024 to mark World Wetlands Day. In 2025, the city's representative to Congress stated that he will push for reclamation projects in the wetland park for business purposes, which would permanently destroy the Ramsar site's natural environment and biodiversity.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHoCn_9Erng

Geography

The Las Piñas–Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area (LPPCHEA) are composed of two primary islands; Freedom Island and Long Island. The area is covered with

mangroves A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have particular adaptations to take in extra oxygen and remove sal ...

, ponds and lagoons,

mudflats Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal ...

salt marshes A salt marsh, saltmarsh or salting, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open Seawater, saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the ti ...

, and mixed beach forests. The entire LPPCHEA covers an area of ; about of which are by tidal mudflats, and of which are by its mangrove forest.

Freedom Island

Freedom Island located in the northern portion of the LPPCHEA in

is an

artificial island An artificial island or man-made island is an island that has been Construction, constructed by humans rather than formed through natural processes. Other definitions may suggest that artificial islands are lands with the characteristics of hum ...

formed between 1973 and 1985 during the construction of the Manila–Cavite Coastal Road. Freedom Island covers an area of about with an elevation of between above sea level. It is a

barrier island Barrier islands are a Coast#Landforms, coastal landform, a type of dune, dune system and sand island, where an area of sand has been formed by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of an ...

located across from the

Manila–Cavite Expressway The Manila–Cavite Expressway (more popularly known as CAVITEX), signed as E3 of the Philippine expressway network and R-1 of Metro Manila's arterial road network, is a controlled-access highway linking Manila to the southern province of ...

just south of another reclaimed site called Asiaworld City, a residential waterfront community that is part of the bigger Bay City development. The island runs along the coast from ''

barangay The barangay (; abbreviated as Brgy. or Bgy.), historically referred to as ''barrio'', is the smallest Administrative divisions of the Philippines, administrative division in the Philippines. Named after the Precolonial barangay, precolonial po ...

'' La Huerta at its north end near the mouth of

Parañaque River The Parañaque River (), also known as the Tambo River, is a river in Metro Manila in the Philippines. It is located south of Manila passing through Pasay and Parañaque located near Ninoy Aquino International Airport. The river exits Manila Bay ...

into barangay San Dionisio right at the border with Las Piñas. A narrow landfill connects its southern tip to the mainland and Long Island near the expressway toll barrier. Freedom Island consists primarily of loam and dredged material pulled from the bay and nearby lands.

Long Island

Long Island and another smaller island also formed by

land reclamation Land reclamation, often known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new Terrestrial ecoregion, land from oceans, list of seas, seas, Stream bed, riverbeds or lake ...

are situated south of Freedom Island and is under the jurisdiction of the city of

Fauna

The LPPCHEA contains a mangrove forest and swamps providing a habitat for many migratory bird species which devises the East Asian–Australasian Migratory Flyway. There are at least 41 recorded migratory birds coming from as far as

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, and

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

in the protected area. The migration season is every August to April and there could be 5,000 individual birds daily. Among these birds are the

Little Egret The little egret (''Egretta garzetta'') is a species of small heron in the family Ardeidae. It is a white bird with a slender black beak, long black legs and, in the western race, yellow feet. As an aquatic bird, it feeds in shallow water and on ...

Black-crowned night heron The black-crowned night heron (''Nycticorax nycticorax'') r black-capped night heron commonly shortened to just night heron in Eurasia, is a medium-sized heron found throughout a large part of the world, including parts of Europe, Asia, and Nort ...

and the

Common Moorhen The common moorhen (''Gallinula chloropus''), also known as the waterhen, is a bird species in the Rail (bird), rail family (Rallidae). It is distributed across many parts of the Old World, across Africa, Europe, and Asia. It lives around well-ve ...

. Among the endemic species in the area is the

Philippine duck The Philippine duck (''Anas luzonica'') is a large dabbling duck of the genus ''Anas''. Its native name is ''papan'' or ''patong gubat'' which translates to "forest duck" in Filipinos. It is the only endemic duck in the Philippines but has been r ...

. The LPPCHEA is the only known breeding ground for the ducks in

. During the

low tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables c ...

, small invertebrates and macrobenthic species are exposed to the air which are consumed by birds and other small animals in the area. The area is also a spawning ground, nursery and sanctuary for fishes.

Flora

The LPPCHEA hosts one of the few remaining

mangrove forest Mangrove forests, also called mangrove swamps, mangrove thickets or mangals, are productive wetlands that occur in coastal intertidal zones. Mangrove forests grow mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes because mangrove trees cannot withsta ...

s in Metro Manila. There are 11 mangrove species in the area. These are locally known as the Bungalon, Bakauan Babae, Bakauan Bato, Pototan, Kolasi, Pagatpat, Banalo, Tabigi, Saging-saging, Buta-buta and Nilad. Nilad is a species introduced to the area by the

Department of Environment and Natural Resources The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR; ) is the Executive Departments of the Philippines, executive department of the Philippine government responsible for the conservation, management, development, and proper use of the cou ...

-National Capital Region (DENR-NCR). Only a select few salt-tolerant species of herbs, grasses, and shrubs grow in the LPPCHEA's salt marshes due to the high

saline Saline may refer to: Salt-related * Saline (medicine), a liquid with salt content to match the human body * Saline water, non-medicinal salt water * Saline, a historical term (especially American) for a salt works or saltern Places United States ...

content in the area's soil.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area Ramsar sites in the Philippines Las Piñas Parañaque Parks in Metro Manila Protected areas established in 2007 2007 establishments in the Philippines Ecotourism